Orioles Outright Ruben Tejada

The Orioles announced that infielder Ruben Tejada has cleared waivers and been assigned outright to Triple-A Norfolk. Tejada’s removal from the roster clears way for Ryan Flaherty, who has been reinstated from the disabled list, according to the team.

Injuries to Flaherty and J.J. Hardy created an opening for Tejada on Baltimore’s big league roster, but the longtime Mets infielder struggled at the plate through 41 games in an Orioles uniform. In 124 trips to the plate, Tejada batted just .230/.293/.283 with six doubles prior to being outrighted back to Triple-A. Those struggles are similar to the ones Tejada experienced in limited action with the Cardinals and Giants in 2016. His last reasonably productive season came with the 2015 Mets, when he hit .261/.338/.350 in 116 games (407 plate appearances).

The 31-year-old Flaherty has been on the disabled list since late May due to a shoulder strain. He carries a mere .216/.285/.356 batting line in 1261 career plate appearances, though he gives manager Buck Showalter plenty of versatility off the bench. Flaherty has more than 390 innings at each of shortstop, second base and third base under his belt in his career, and he’s also capable of handling corner outfield duties on occasion.

His rookie year at such a young age made the Mets think they had something special. He wasn’t ever a highly regarded prospect prior to that and ended up not being anything special after that rookie year. Bad work ethic early on hurt him too I feel. Decent utility guy but nothing to fight over roster spots with. There are plenty more tejadas out there.

That “slide” baseball? He started way late and was an injury certainly to happen. Hard slides have always been part of teaching to break up a double play but he deserved to be suspended. Hard doesn’t have to equal injury but the lateness meant he was going to continue after the bag leaving Tejada helpless.